12 Cranial Nerves
by Naiyad
Summary: A series of character studies on each of the Org 13. Chp III: It’s late. His robes have grass stains at the knees, and the hem is muddy. His muscles are sore, his brain feels heavy and overused and to top it all off, he’d missed dinner. Dilan's POV
1. I Olfactory

Standard disclaimers apply.

Author's Notes: I'm sorry for any errors or spelling mistakes. Grammar escapes me. "-.- I really hope this works. Please, please drop by and tell me if it was horrible. I need to know. A brief study of Xehanort's character. Set before the nobodies.

**12 Cranial Nerves: I Olfactory**  
by: Naiyad

Xehanort was about ten when he decided that the meaning of life was defined in an individual's scent. Well truthfully, he hadn't really decided that on his own, but Even had caught him off guard.

* * *

"What's your take on the meaning of life?" he had asked on that humid summer afternoon. The self satisfied smirk barely concealed. Evidently, the older boy had stumbled upon some sort of a revelation during his most recent, one-sided conversation with the water fountain, and was eager to show it off. 

"That's easy." Xehanort had answered with the confidence that he had not felt, desperately trying to buy himself time. He was grasping in vain at light footed rabbit thoughts, scurrying so infuriatingly out of reach when their cooperation was needed the most. "It's s-smell." Ashen hair bouncing as he nodded his head for emphasis, amber eyes searching at his feet for a glimpse of a cotton tail.

"Smell…" Even's voice fell a semitone as he repeated the word. "How very…profound." The older boy looked almost disappointed over such an easy win. He had probably expected more of a challenge. "Would you care to…elaborate?" The sleeve of his blue cotton robe flapped against his wrist as he drew swirling patterns in the air with one hair, reinforcing every enunciated syllable, left hand resting on a bony hip, like a wizened wizard, casting a spell. Are wizards always wise? Master Ansem is a wizard king. Someday, Xehanort would want to be a certified wizard. Or better still, he'd have a fleet of wizards under his command. But first, the problem at hand. He needed to focus.

"Well yes, smell." Would they be tempted to approach him if he offered them thoughts of carrots? Ghost bunnies, come here. He didn't notice how his fingers were making come hither gestures towards his feet. "Life is unique to every individual, and with life comes…experience." He's caught a rabbit by its foot.

His companion however, looked decidedly unimpressed. "That's a tried and tired train of thought, Xehanort. I'd have expected better from you." Even always had this odd habit of sniffing when his glasses slipped too low down the bridge of his nose. His eyes would squeeze shut and his nose would wrinkle and for a fraction of a second, he'd look like he just swallowed something very bitter.

"I'm not done." The rodent almost escaped, but he had managed to grab it by its ears. "You see, experience leaves a mark. It sort of taints us with its- uh…" Don't say mark again. Even is almost as bad as Ienzo when it comes to the use of a good vocabulary. His ten year old mind was stumbling and flailing over the wires of connected thoughts in his head. Minutes pass with his lips pursed as the correct words sought to exit. "-stain."

It floats feebly in the space between them, like a frosted breath that melts too quickly in the sun.

Xehanort wanted to kick himself.

Summer is long and profound in Radiant Garden. The robes he wore made him uncomfortable. It clung to him between his armpits and to his thighs. The sun against his back is almost as cruel as the look behind the wire rimmed glasses.

Sounds of laughter distracted him, and he unconsciously turned towards their source. Xehanort didn't notice how his eyes misted over. There's a reason why Braig and Dilan are always playing together, building towers that defy the laws of gravity out of twigs, while he sat here alone picking apart blades of grass. Alone.

In his hands, he feels the soft, lengthy ears, and with uncharacteristic amount of violence, tries to rip them apart.

Try again. Resolve built up in him lake an inhaled breath. He coud feel his lungs expanding. "Experience leaves a mark-"

"You've said that already."

"-like my experiences today," small hands gestures at the expanse of green at his feet. "When I get back to the castle, I would smell of grass, and maybe morning dew. Accumulated experience is the building blocks of life."

Before he's through, the older boy already had his mouth open, poised like a needle, ready to poke holes into a ten-year-old's logic balloon. "If Eleaus smells of sweat, does it mean that he's been playing with salt and saline all day then? Is that what you're implying? _Your_ meaning of life?"

To be completely honest, Xehanort didn't quite get what the blonde was getting at, but decided to pretend he did anyway. It's how puffer-fish survive. He'd read about it in one of Master Ansem's books. Suck in the air, and pretend that he's bigger than he feels.

"No, it means his life is about hard-work and dedication, s'all." He cocks his head to one side as he searched for a way to illustrate his point. "Master Ansem is wise." It's a safe topic, a safe example. "His life encompasses the knowledge of the books in the library, so he always smells of parchment and candle wax."

Thin lips work a while, like he's chewing on the answer before he can swallow it down and digest it, or like he's chewing on a retort before he spits it out. Xehanort is already distracted by the pattern of veins on an oak tree's leaf. It didn't matter. He must have won this round, because Even turned around and quickly made his way back to his spot next to the water fountain without another word. The marmoreal lion lent him a shaded patch of lawn.

From a distance, an all too familiar crash resounds and a flock of pigeons take to the sky, followed by Dilan's frustrated curses. A cricket chirped at his feet. Xehanort knelt to the ground and placed his palms like a dome around the creature. It escaped easily through the opening at the top, and he settled back to dissecting the grass around him.

* * *

A lifetime later, Xemnas idly wonders why he doesn't seem to smell of anything in particular. 


	2. II Optic

Standard disclaimers apply.

Author's Notes: I'm rather happy with the way this one turned out. Set before the nobodies. Braig's POV.

**12 Cranial Nerves: II Optic**  
by: Naiyad

Braig liked it best when he had an eagle eyed view, when he could look down and see the whole world spread out at his feet. Open fields and hidden trails, everything presented to him in miniature scale. He was always climbing trees and climbing walls and climbing over gates. Master Ansem couldn't understand it, and had no qualms about telling him so as he levitated his sorry butt down from where he had somehow gotten himself stuck in one chimney or another. It wasn't something he could explain. Words had never been a strong point of his. "Instinct," he'd say. Something about being on solid ground made him feel too…constrained. 

His family had been fishermen, and he'd been accustomed to having a lot of freedom. His family never made very much, but it was enough to get by. Their houses were small, but the beach was their backyard. They made their homes at the outskirts of the Garden, near the end of the world. Water here flowed towards the Rising Falls that fed the inner city. The children would play in the sun and chase the waves all day until dusk turned the crystal water black.

He had to sacrifice that when he let himself be plucked out from his home, away from his family, and be brought to the castle with promises of an education and a brighter future.

* * *

Mathematics and history and anatomy lessons found him staring out the tall windows, losing himself in the clouds, chin in hand and notebook blank. The only reason he got away with it as often as he did was that Dilan would, as discretely as he could manage, nudge his own notes over the side of his desk so that Braig could read out the answers when the teachers called on him. The other part was supposed to be a secret, but deep down Braig knew. The other apprentices never had so much trouble concentrating in class. Xehanort, always eager to learn, was the apple of the teachers' eyes. 

'Don't pity me. It doesn't matter.'

* * *

He noticed one day that if he ran really, really fast down the spiralling staircase of the castle with his arms spread wide, it would feel like his feet no longer touched the steps. It was fantastic, exhilarating, until he tripped over the hem of his robes and broke his two femurs in three places. 

Needless to say, Master Ansem was not impressed. "I always knew that taking in the six of you would turn my hair grey, but it is not so." He pinched the bridge of his nose as he paced the room. Braig tried to refrain from whimpering. Is the nurse trying to bandage him up or break off his legs? He tried his best to stop himself from crying out. Through the crack of the door, he could just make out five silhouettes, the figures of his classmates, crowding for a view, half amused, half worried. A flash of silver caught in the lamplight. "You my boy, will single handedly cause all my hair to fall out. I will be the Garden's first bald king."

He had to spend four months in bed, locked up in the castle infirmary. The only consolation he had was that the infirmary was located in one of the taller towers, and Dilan (after tiring himself out laughing once Braig recounted the accident) had helped drag his bed closer to the window.

He could just make out the Rising Falls down below, and a little further out, the familiar stretch of blue.

* * *

On the second day, Master Ansem having finally decided on a suitable punishment, declared him officially grounded, and the only visitors he was permitted were his teachers. It wasn't a particularly difficult sentence to carry out, especially since his legs had been rendered temporarily useless, so it wasn't as if he could move anywhere. Lessons continued as usual, except now he didn't have his best friend to let him copy the answers from. 

The kinder teachers blamed the anaesthetics, the more observant ones knew very well the reason for his sudden drop in grades, but continued to act ignorant. They think it's his way of acting out. All the mischief he'd gotten himself into lately had been because Master Ansem managed his _situation _badly.

That's not it! There wasn't a _situation_ to handle. He's not acting out! It doesn't matter! He just wants….

* * *

One windy afternoon, sometime between late summer and early autumn, he was gazing out the window watching the geese get an early start on their migration whilst Dilan, having snuck up to the infirmary after class, played with used parchment and got ink stains on the bed sheets. 

"If you could have, like, _one_ super power, what'd you chose?"

The shorter teen didn't even bother to look up from his work. "I _can_ have almost any super power of my choice, and so can you, if you'd pay a bit more attention in class." His fingers stilled suddenly from where he was smoothing out a crease in the parchment, and then in a flurry of dark brown dreads, his head disappeared into his bag.

Braig chose to ignore his friend's strange behaviour, the way he often did. "I'd wanna fly."

"Of course you would." Dilan's voice came out muffled from under the bed. "You're probably better off with something like heightened healing abilities right now, though. The last time we had a similar conversation, you said you wanted to be an octopus."

"Did not! I said if I believed in reincar_na_tions, I'd wanna be an octopus, cause they're so squishy and can fit through bottle necks and little spaces. Think of all the pranks I could get away with! No one would be able to get their hands on me. I've even got three extra pair of arms for mischief making."

"So, now you want to be a flying octopus."

And people say that _he's_ the bizarre one. "Yeah. I can so see it now." He held out a hand and slowly moved it across his face, palm outwards, the way he's seen the castle bards do when recounting a tale. "I mean, I've got it all worked out. All I gotta do is stand on my squishy forehead with all my, uh, arm-leg things in the air. Then, I start spinning really fast, like a helicopter, so that the difference in air speed would like, propel me up or whatever and voila! _What_ are you doing down there anyway? If you keep your head in that bag any longer, you'd run out of oxygen or something."

There was a small struggle, when Dilan realized that one of his dreads had gotten caught in the zipper, before he managed to shove a role of parchment into Braig's face. "Figured you'd find today's lesson rather interesting."

Honey brown eyes grew smaller and smaller as he scanned over the chicken scrawl before suddenly going wide.

"Gravity?"

"Comes pretty close to flying, and you don't have to die first before testing it out."

He looked up and felt the corners of his mouth twitch. They grinned at each other, two adolescent conspirators, then Dilan handed him half of the paper airplanes he had been folding, and they both leaned out the window to take aim at the unsuspecting pedestrians below.

It doesn't solve anything, but it feels like escape.

* * *

"There's a difference between looking and seeing." Master Ansem looked up briefly from the book he was reading. "In your eagerness to find the ultimate vantage point, don't lose sight of what's important." 

But what _is_ important? Was it something important to him, or to the Garden? Was it about home, and family, or becoming the next king? He's no longer next in line for the throne.

Not since Xehanort showed up.

So is he looking for his place as king, or is he looking for a way to run from the sacrifices he had made, in the face of promises unfulfilled?

* * *

Author's Notes: So, this is my idea on how the original six were numbered. Chapter three may take a while, because beloved Dilan has refused to cooperate...again. He should really just tell me his personal demons, cause chances are, he won't like the ones I make for him. . 


	3. III Oculomotor

Standard disclaimers apply.

Author's Notes: I wasn't sure how vague or how direct I should be with some of the parts. This was the best I managed. Hope it worked, and I hope the tenses weren't too inconsistant. I realize too late that I should have paid more attention in English classes. . Oh, and if there're any astronomy enthusiasts out there, if you notice any discrepancies in the lesson they were having, do let me know. I can't remember the lifespan and I can't find my book anymore.

**12 Cranial Nerves: III Oculomotor**  
by: Naiyad

Dilan closes his eyes and sees his sister. White, white limbs from under shawl after scarf after sweater, the ghost of the mid winter sun in her hair. Lost ducks swarm around her, pecking at the breadcrumbs in her quivering hand. 

Dilan opens his eyes and sees Braig, sprawled out on the perfectly arranged tiles of the castle's upper ground, chewing on a toothpick. It's another lazy afternoon in early summer. The grass on the castle grounds below would have been a more comfortable place to laze away than the marble tiles, heated too hot by the sun, but Braig preferred being up here, and Dilan didn't feel like having a fist fight.

The sunlight feels painfully warm on his skin. He turns his face towards the sky, the castle ever looming on his right, and to his left, an endless expanse of nothingness. Braig grunts and rolls onto his stomach, light brown eyes dancing. "Let's go bully Even." His tongue is sticking out a little at the corner of his too wide smile, like the head of a curious pink slug.

Dilan sighs and tries to focus again on the heavy, leather bound book on his lap. Magical equations chasing after each other in clean, straight, _long_ lines all across its pages. "Getting up would require too much energy."

The older teen gives an undignified snort and returns to sunbathing. "There's never anything to do," he moans, pointedly ignoring his own stack of books, discarded near a pillar. "We're wasting the hours of our youth, being deprived of … things to do. I'm boooored."

* * *

"The teachers are mad. They're all bonkers. How the hell do they expect us to finish so many essays and what nots…they should've given us more time. I mean, there're only so many hours in a day." From his perch on the desk behind Braig's, Dilan runs through the paper as his friend writes, checking the answers from over his shoulder. He can't offer his own homework for Braig to copy from since the teachers assigned each student different topics. The best he can do is point out the incorrect mathematical results and spelling mistakes, which becomes increasingly difficult as Braig's writing ceases to form separate letters and instead fuse into wavy lines. The only way to guess what they stand for is to estimate the length of each squiggle in relation to the next. Eventually, there will be more ink splotches than context in his paper. 

Even gives them a disdainful look from the corner of his eyes. "Slacking away as usual, of course."

"Keep your nose in your own business scarecrow, or you might find it stuffed into a toilet bowl," Braig practically snarls. The teacher is going to step through the door any minute now, and he still has eleven equations to go through.

Unperturbed, Even merely sniffs and goes back to smoothing out the creases in his own parchment. His fingers are long, and bony and white.

Professor Xu walks in just as Braig dots his last i or j or something else that requires a dot, with triumphant flourish. She eyes Braig, who goes a little sheepish and slides lower in his wooden chair. "Hand in your assignments please. Today we will discuss the constellation patterns of the northern sky."

The lesson carries on the way it usually does. Braig starts nodding off halfway through. Eleaus though attentive, sits slumped in his seat and Ienzo though busy scribbling in his notebook, is in fact, not scribbling down notes.

"Who can tell me the typical lifespan of a great red giant?" Predictably, two hands shoot up. "Yes, Even."

He stands up eagerly, his chair making an unpleasant scraping sound against the floor. Xehanort who sits in the front row turns around in his own chair to listen. "A red giant often lasts for about six million years."

The smile on Professor Xu's face falteres a little. "But Even," she begins slowly, "even a blue giant only survives for a little over a million years. After that it'll simply implode to become either a white dwarf or a black hole. You meant six hundred thousand years didn't you?" her tone gentle. "Thank you, Even. You may sit."

Braig snickers behind his textbook and Dilan resisted the urge to kick his chair. The tips of the younger boy's usually pallid ears turn red, and the rest of his face becomes splotchy. He sits down in one abrupt motion, keeping his head low and hiding as much as he can behind loose strands hay coloured hair. For the rest of the lesson, Even remained silent, leaving all the question answering to Xehanort.

It was a simple mistake, one that the class quickly forgot, but Even rarely makes mistakes, and he never handles them well.

* * *

She had the prettiest pair of clear blue eyes, but she cried too often. Her fingers and her voice always shook, forever trembling, forever shivering, even when her body burnt with the heat of fever. 

Dilan remembers how it feels when she helped tighten his dreadlocks. He used to watch her reflection in the mirror, used to watch her white, white fingers in his hair, and the absentminded smile across her narrow face.

* * *

After class, he tells Braig to go for lunch first. There's something that he wants to get from his room. Braig saunters off with a careless wave over his shoulder. "If you don't hurry, Eleaus will gobble up your share. Don't go meandering around." 

Dilan doesn't head for the northeast wing, where his room is located. Instead, he makes for the west wing, towards the old, disused laundry room there. He knows of someone who favours it as his own, secluded, secret hidey-hole.

No one bullies Eleaus; no one dares because of his build. Although younger, he already towers over Braig by a good half a head. No one picks a fight with Ienzo either, despite him being eternally scrawny. When it comes down to it, Ienzo knows how to take care of himself. Years of living on the streets had taught him that being made out of nothing but elbows and knees does not necessarily put him at a disadvantage. Xehanort doesn't get bullied half as often as you would expect. He gains this leverage from being Master Ansem's favourite student, an immunity that once extended over Even. But lately, Xehanort has been outshining him more and more often.

Dilan stops in front of the whitewashed door. He can hear the pitiful sobs from the other side. Even always, always blew things out of proportions. Something tells him that he should leave, that his efforts will not be appreciated. Even will cope, as he always had before. Dilan stops with one hand poised to knock.

'Linda will be fine. It's just another fever.'

He turns away and heads off to meet Braig. If the older boy was being thoughtful, he would have saved some food for him from the jaws of the insatiable Eleaus.

* * *

"Dilan! I know what we can do!" 

They're sitting on the lawn this time, mercifully hiding under the shade of an oak tree. At least, _he's_ sitting. Braig chose to squat next to him. Dilan had managed to scrounger a sandwich from the kitchen, since Braig hadn't been thoughtful after all. He brushes stray crumbs from his robes and waits for his friend to continue.

"We could build like, a large, airborne, recreational item," all grins and pearl white teeth.

"Oh! Fabulous idea! You mean like a, like a _kite_?" he returns, complete with gleeful faux excitement and matching grin.

That is obviously not the reaction he had expected, and his smile falters, unsure (a little frightened even). Dilan fights to keep his face straight. Startling Braig was so much fun.

"I liked large, airborne recreational item better, but yeah. A really big one."

"There's no wind. We wouldn't be able to fly it."

"_Hello_, were you listening? I said _big_. You know, as in large, humongous, of biblical proportions? By the time we're finished, it'll be autumn and as windy as a windmill."

Dilan considers arguing that something of that size wouldn't be able to get off of the ground, that the raw materials they required would have to be both very sturdy to support it's bulk, and very light to take to the air, and therefore nearly impossible to find, that he had better things to do, like homework and assignments, that windmills aren't windy…they're just buildings. Instead, he breaths a resigned sigh, and pulls out a piece of parchment from his bag and a rather bent quill.

At least it will keep him from thinking of white hands and shaking shoulders.

* * *

It's late. His robes have grass stains at the knees, and the hem is muddy. His muscles are sore, his brain feels heavy and overused and to top it all off, he'd missed dinner. On the way up, he bumps into Even, who freezes at the top of the flight of stairs. 

Tear stained and dusty, his eyes redder than usual, his robes wrinkled and dishevelled. Thin, shaking and tired.

"Have you eaten?"

Even glares down at him, mortified at having been found in such a state. "What does it matter to you? Have you come to laugh at me again?"

"No one is laughing at you. You shouldn't skip meals. Eat more, you're too skinny."

The blonde fairly stomps down the stairs and pushes past him. Dilan manages to catch a bird thin wrist. "Let go! Where's Braig? He's hiding somewhere isn't he? You want to lock me into a closet again? Let GO!"

He does, and the younger boy stumbles back a few steps, precariously before regaining his balance. With his other hand, he rubs at his wrist, already red from Dilan's grip, and runs down the rest of the way to disappear through the corridor.

White, thin and shaking.


End file.
